Orange You Glad?
by Harvest Dragon
Summary: The moody bartender of Castanet doesn't like to smile much, never mind laugh at anything besides Luke. He's too serious with cooking to be concerned with such things. Let's see if that pun-loving Akari can change his priorities. One-shot.


Orange You Glad?

_AN: Hello! This will be mah second one-shot…with Chase! He doesn't have enough love…so without further ado, read on!_

_This story, by the way, is done in third-person, but focuses on Chase's feelings. If you get what I mean. It is a collection of his important interactions with different people, mostly Akari. _

* * *

Chase knew for certain exactly three things in his life that would never change.

He would never eat Maya's cooking willingly.

He would probably be stuck as a bartender for the rest of his existence.

And he would never laugh at a joke, unless that joke happened to be Luke.

Chase was (somewhat) satisfied with this planned-out, monotony-filled life, those three rules governing his existence in a simple and effiecient manner as he sat back to watch his life played out how he planned it.

Unfortunately he did not consider the fact that every plan, no matter how great, has a bump in the road.

And this plan had a rather large bump with a name Chase soon ranked with the likes of the annoying and naïve Luke.

"Hello!" A red-headed bundle of joy bounced into the Brass Bar too loudly for Chase's tastes, decked in an orange tank-top over a yellow shirt and a red skirt with pants underneath. "How IS everybody?" She asked with a chirpy tone.

"Good, Akariiii!" Came the standard chorus from everyone in the bar besides Chase who furiously scrubbed at a wine glass and was obviously annoyed by this routine. The girl grinned with an unnatural brightness as she made her way towards the counter, and the closer she got, the harder the foul-tempered bartender scrubbed the poor wine glass. Akari rested her elbows on the counter and leaned forward with a happy smile directed straight at him. "Hiya, Chase!"

The glass in Chase's murderous hands started to creak under the pressure of his brutal scrubbing, and the chef pointedly looked in another direction, ignoring her. She frowned a bit, slightly put off by his snobbish disregard of her greeting, before smiling wider than ever.

"Chase, what's wrong? _Orange_ you glad to see me?" She said with a grin as she produced a glass of orange juice from behind her back and slid it across the countertop. The pink-haired bartender curled his lip at the cheesy pun and reluctantly accepted his gift, ceasing his assault on the glass for the moment.

"What'll it be," he deadpanned, his violet eyes narrowed in annoyance as he went straight to business. He would **_not _**make small talk with her. Akari blew a raspberry thoughtfully, tapping an erratic pattern on the counter with her fingers.

"Um...lemme see...hmmm...perhaps the...? No...or the Cherry Co...nah...or perhaps the..." she rambled on and on, oblivious to his annoyed glare, and his glass scrubbing resumed and grew violent once more. As the minute ticked painfully by for Chase, the glass suffering with each passing second, she _finally_ lifted a finger, her eyes bright with her desicion...

"Ah! I forgot what I was going to order!" She said grinning, and sighed with an embarrassed shrug. "Oh well, I wasn't that hungry, anyhow! Check ya later, chef!" And with that she glided over to Owen and Luke's table, where she quickly immersed herself in their deeply slurred conversation.

The glass in Chase's hands shattered, clattering to the floor loudly. Kathy stopped by the counter right then, her brows furrowed in concern. "Um...you okay...?" She asked him, and then started examining the shattered glass with a sigh.

"Peachy..." he exhaled, his right eyebrow jumping and twitching like crazy, and turned his back on the happy farmer with a mutter of annoyance.

* * *

Thankfully for Chase, the goddess must've had a divine hand on his life, since he didn't cross paths with the bizzare and jovial farming girl for a whole three days. He wondered, wistfully, if he could last the whole week without making contact with her existence whatsoev-

"Hey! I've been CHASEing you around!" Akari exclaimed suddenly and loudly, surprise glomping him from behind. As his heart hammered inside his chest at the scare she'd given him, he resisted the urge to scream at the sky with blasphemies that would make Yolanda cry. Akari let go of the bartender to smile impishly at him, seemingly oblivious to the death aura he was giving off. "Did ya miss me?"

_Perish the thought._

"Anyway, since I haven't been faithful with visiting ya, I got you...some extra MUSSELS to help you cook!" She flexed her guns, grinning at him with an expectant look on her face. As if she seriously expected him to laugh, or even crack a smile.

She was out of luck.

"You don't need muscules to cook," Chase said with contempt, and turned to leave, when a large bag of mussels were plopped down in front of him with a grunt.

"Heehee, I meant MUSSELS, not MUSCULES, Chase...!" She took a moment to laugh at her own pun. Chase wanted to kneel over, choke and die at the utter corniness of the joke, but instead took the bag of mussels with a small nod of recognition. _I wonder how long it took to find so many...eh, they're probably low-quality... _he dismissed his own curious thoughts and stiffly nodded at her.

"Thanks." He said without enthusiasam. She grinned and wagged her finger back and forth at him in a cheeky manner.

"No problem, Chase! I'll _sea _you later~" And with that, she dashed off excitedly. When she was out of sight, he risked peeking inside the bag, only to find the mussels were sparkling with their impossible cleanliness. Slightly shocked, the chef took one out to examine it with a critical eye, and found no faults.

_She may be annoying...but she knows quality... _He admitted with a mental sigh.

He slung the bag over his shoulder and began to walk down the lonesome road to his home, the wind whistling in his ears as he strolled along on his quiet path of solitude.

* * *

"Chase, you hafta eat this new dish I made! It's like, really good!" An orange-haired girl said in a sing-song manner, her pink pumpkin-bottom dress and her strange pigtails making her look rather childish. To top her kiddish look off, she wore white tights and pink ballet shoes with an overabudance of laces. She held a plate with a burnt black substance on it in her hands, and the odor it emitted smelled like death itself.

The pink-haired man was making an extremely complex-looking dish at the moment, as he was frying mussels and other meats as well as baking something in the oven, and turned to give her a fiery glare that could've burned icy water.

"Do I look like I have time to upchuck right now?" He asked sarcastically, and the girl's sparkling blue eyes grew dim. She stomped her foot with a indignant noise as she put her hands on her hips sassily.

"You're way too mean all the time, Mr. Grumpy Pants!" She said with a growl as she pouted like a kid. "I made this dish for you, and you won't even sample it! How cruel...!"

He sighed as he emptied the fried and shucked mussels into a white china plate. "Why would I want to eat it, Maya...?" Chase asked. "You know what happens when I eat your so-called food..."

"This is different! You'll like it for sure! It's my super-special 'black night' cake!" She whined, and he rubbed his temples and then pulled a loaf of bread out of the oven. "Made specially for you, Chase!" She batted her eyelashes in a way that she might've found cute but made the bartender nauseated.

"Maya-"

"Wha...? Cake?" Akari asked, and both of them jumped in shock as she zipped up to Maya. "You made a cake? Neato, lemme taste it!" The farmer begged her, and as if on cue, Akari's stomach growled. "I've been in the forest with Luke chopping trees for _hours_, and I'm _really_ hungry...!" She whined the last part out, and Chase was rather disturbed at the resemblance she and the carpenter shared with one another.

"Wh...when did you even _get_ here?" Maya asked as Chase watched the straving girl with a baffled expression. Akari fixed the wannabe cook with an expectant stare.

"While you two were having an argument over your love relationship or whatever..." the farmer replied, a bit miffed, and Maya squealed with glee as Chase immediately face-palmed. "You didn't notice the bell when I came in?" She asked, feeling a bit invisible.

"It's written in the _stars,_ Chase! You and me are meant to be~!" Maya giggled, ignoring Akari's question, and the man looked at Akari with eyes that could murder a puppy in its sleep.

"Clearly you know nothing about a 'love relationship,'" he told her bluntly, annoyed at Maya's fangirlish behavior and Akari's cluelessness. "I doubt you've ever been in such a relationship so it's not a surprise you can't tell the difference between love and tolerance." Akari blinked in that dopey way that reminded him of a sheep; since their IQ's were equal as far as he was concerned, the comparison made perfect sense to him.

"Eh? I'm in a relationship!" She said with a smile. "I've have lots of people I love!" and as Chase gawked at this display of her simplicity, she returned her eyes to the impossibly burnt death cake. "Lemme have a bit!" She begged Maya, who was swimming in her Chase-filled fantasies.

"Oh, sure...!" Maya sighed absentmindly, and Chase's eyes went wide with horror as the farmer eagerly swiped a mighty-sized morsel off the plate and shoved it into her mouth with a pleased and muffled grunt.

"Akari, no! That cake is a...!" She turned to him with a curious expression before her face paled, and she covered her mouth with her hands. Her eyes bulged out of her head as her face flushed a sickly green color, and Chase grabbed a paper bag off the kitchen counter as he rushed to Akari's side. _"Spit it OUT!"_ He ordered as he shoved the bag roughly into her face.

The farmer clutched the bag as she gave a couple of wet and disgusting hacks into it, make Maya and Chase cringe. Chase patted her back awkwardly as Akari gasped, and she moved the bag away from her face after a minute with a wheeze.

"...You okay?" Chase asked her after a rather long pause, and she coughed harshly in response.

"Yep," she wheezed as she wiped a tear away from her eye. Maya pouted as Chase rubbed her back soothingly, and stomped her foot once more.

"It wasn't THAT bad...!" She whined as she crossed her arms moodily, her stick-out pigtails bobbing as she tossed her head. "Geez!"

Chase turned to look at her like she was insane. "You're right Maya. It wasn't bad. It was absolutely terrible. If this glutton-" he gestured to Akari, "couldn't stomach that mess, nobody can."

"Oh, you make me so mad...!" Maya said, throughly saddened, as she did her best to imitate his signature glare. "I'm going now! Have fun being _forever **alone**_!"

As the failed cook strode out of the Brass Bar with her partially-eaten diasaster in hand, Chase helped Akari up slowly. The farmer stood somewhat steadily on her feet and grinned at him a bit feebly, her face still a bit pale.

"That wasn't...a cake..." she said simply, her eyes reflecting her disgust at the taste of the utter monsterousity Maya had created, and Chase had to smirk a little. "I'm...not sure if it was...even food..."

"Nothing Maya cooks is edible," he replied with a small and rare smile, and suddenly he cursed out loud as he remembered something. "My dish!" He exclaimed, his brows furrowed in horror.

He rushed to the kitchen and to his immense relief only found the meats slightly charred. He sighed with a sort of accepting solemness and wiped his forehead in relief. "Thank the goddess I took care of the other food already..."

"You're really serious about cooking, Chase," Akari said from behind him, and he almost jumped. He nodded as he emptied the meats into a plate and began to chop away the burnt parts.

"It's what I live for," he replied honestly. Akari crossed her arms with a intrigued hum as her eyes flashed with a purposeful glint.

"So, is that the only thing you care about?" She asked him suddenly, and Chase's eyes widened as he turned to look at her rather bewilderly. " Is cooking the essence of your soul...?"

"Wh-where did that question come from?" He stuttered at the rather personal inquisition. She stared at him expectantly, as if he should already know the answer.

"Well? Don't you care about other things?" She repeated, her brown eyes boring into his own for what seemed to be an infinite amount of time. Chase finally turned back to the meat, after what seemed like an eternity, and resumed cutting away.

"Of course I do." He answered with a snort. Akari was silent for a long time, the creak of the floorboards the only sign that she was still there.

"I wonder."

And with that, the chiming of the door opening sounded before the soft thump of its closure followed. Chase blinked, the depth of her parting two words piercing his core.

"I can't figure that girl out," he muttered as he sampled one of the shucked mussels absently as he ran a hand through his pink curls reflexively.

* * *

"Hey, Chase!" Luke called as he banged his left fist against his table loudly, his right hand occupied with a glass of wine. The night was upon the island, and the Brass Bar was buzzing with business as Kathy dished out orders like a champion and Selena danced around her stage invitingly. Chase surpressed a sigh at the sound of Luke calling him and walked over to the slightly tipsy carpenter's table. "Can I help you?" the bartender asked dispassionately.

"Sit down," Luke said, and Chase complied with a grumble. The blue-haired man was missing his signature bandanna, and he wore his black tank top without one of his jackets. His rugged blue jeans were smugged with dirt from an long day's work, and his golden eyes gleamed menacingly as he stared at the sulking bartender with a disturbing intensity.

"What is it? Don't waste my time Luke; the Brass Bar's packed tonight," Chase said with an annoyed tone as he looked away from the carpenter. With out warning Luke grabbed Chase by the chin and pulled him towards his face so that they were pratically nose-to-nose. Chase blanched, wondering if the carpenter was downright drunk, before the blue-haired man spoke with a lazy and nonchalant tone.

"You need to loosen up," he said with finality, letting go of the bartender's chin. Chase rubbed his face as the carpenter propped his feet onto the table with a hiccup, boots and all. "You act like you have a piece of lumber up your butt. Take me for an example! I'm the most carefree person on Castanet and look how happy I am!"

"If 'loosening up' means 'becoming an idiot,' I'll pass," Chase replied sharply, and Luke sighed.

"Dude. You need to have a laugh sometimes! As they say, laughter is the best sport!"

"Um, you mean _medicine_," Chase corrected him, and Luke rolled his eyes.

"See, in life, you don't need to go bananas over the small stuff all the time," the carpenter replied with another sigh. "I see now why Akari is so determined to make you-" Luke cut off abruptly, as if he had said something he shouldn't have, and Chase glared at him.

"Make me _what_?" He demanded, and Luke shrugged with nonchalance.

"I dunno," the carpenter replied, and Chase suddenly wanted to smother Luke with a cabbage leaf. "How about you hang with me tonight? Owen isn't coming, so I'm pretty lonely over here..." he pouted like a child, his golden eyes widened like a kicked kitten's.

"Luke, I don't have time for your antics right now," Chase snapped, still annoyed at the carpenter's blatant refusal to stop withholding information from him. The chef stood up with a huff and turned away sharply. "Good night, sir."

Ignoring Luke's protests, Chase glided through the packs of people to the kitchen, where he sighed contentedly. His safe haven...nothing and nobody would bother him in here...

Suddenly the music Selena was dancing to changed into a lively upbeat dance song, and the lovely red-head shook her hips to the beat with an air of grace about her as she gestured for the visitors to join her. The first to comply was the purple-haired stylist Julius, his pretty face glittering under the lights as he moved to the rhythm in his own style. Soon after him were the sowing sisters, Luna obstinately dragging Candace along despite the latter's obvious unwillingness. After them was a exuberant Luke, his dance moves as untamed as his personality, and eventually Kathy put down her waitress tray to join the fun. Chase groaned as even his boss Hayden started grooving along awkwardly along, and his now-spoiled mood was not helped by the fact that a very familiar face was approaching him steadily through the dancing mob.

"Dance with me Chase!" Maya squealed as she reached him, her blue eyes sparkling with her wild fantasies. "I can dance really well you know!" She winked in a failed attempt to be saucy.

"Can you now...?" he muttered as he fiddled with a fork on the counter. She grabbed his wrist suddenly and tugged him out onto the dance floor with brutal strength. "Maya? I didn't say yes!" He protested angrily.

She ignored his words and started to swish her hips in an attempt to imitate Selena, and ended up doing an awkward booty bump routine. Chase rubbed his temples as he contemplated on how he was going to escape the mob of dancers, and finally decided on trying to 'dance' his way through the crowd. With shame dripping from his pores, he swished his hips back and forth, easing through the crowd slowly as he gradually left Maya behind. Suddenly the music changed again, the beat spicier than a salsa, and the dancing became frenzied as people began to pair up with each other. He bumped into someone quite roughly, and they clutched at his shirt to keep from falling over. "Chase...?" They asked him with a note of surprise in their voice.

Chase turned to see Akari hanging onto him with a feeble grin with one hand and holding a mostly-consumed blueberry muffin in the other. He hadn't really talked to her for a while now, only receiving his daily gift from her before she would take off, and he was surprisingly not as bothered as usual by her presence tonight.

_That has to be my tiredness talking._

"Didn't peg you as a dancer, bartender..." she teased, her words muffled a bit by the muffin in her mouth.

"I'm not. Maya dragged me in here, so I'm getting out," he replied, his cheeks pink with embarrassment. Has she seen his unmanly hip-swishes? If so, he'd never hear the end of it. The mass of dancing people forced them to be pressed against each other tightly, and Akari gave a thoughtful hum, as she ate the rest of her muffin, before twinning her fingers with his unexpectedly. Chase gave her a pricelessly flabbergasted face as a flush creeped up his neck. "Akari...?"

"Let's dance off," she said with a crafty glint in her brown eyes. "We could dance our way out of this crowd."

He looked at her wih disbelief. "A...dance off?"

"Yes...unless you can't handle sampling a _spicy salsa _with me," Akari said with a signature corny joke, and with that Chase set his jaw as he placed his right hand at the small of her back.

Akari looked slightly shocked as she was suddenly led into a charismatic dance routine, the bartender's body in perfect tempo with the music's upbeat melody. With a grin she matched his steps, as they drew back from each other with melodramatic force before entwining their fingers once more, their bodies moving in perfect sync. He snapped her towards the ground, her eyes locking with his for a brief moment before she was upright again, and dancing fiercer than ever. He spun her around with a tender gentleness before pulling her to his side again, the heat of their dance battle blazing. She fixed him with an impressed gaze, their feet tapping out a steady rhythm. "So you can dance," she stated simply, and he resisted the urge to smirk as his hands held her sides as they moved their feet together with perfect timing.

"A great chef knows flavor, whether in food...or dancing," he said quietly, and snapped her back once more so that her head hovered mere inches off of the ground, and at that moment the spicy song ended. Chase brought her back up to a standing postition as the bar erupted in applause, and as they stepped away from each other they looked around in surprise to see most of the Brass Bar clapping earnestly for them. Luke grinned at Chase and gave him a thumbs up while Maya gave Akari a sulky glare. Kathy smiled at both of them as Akari and Chase looked at each other with a confused expression before Akari grinned at him and bowed dramatically.

"Come on; you were good too," Akari said to him as she discretly elbowed him. "Take a bow!"

Chase stared at her blankly for a moment before Akari rolled her eyes and took him by the wrist, forcing him down into a bow with her. She laughed as he flushed awkwardly at the praise he recieved left and right, and Chase's lips curled up the slightest bit.

_I guess this noisy night...wasn't so bad after all..._

He looked at Akari with slightly softened eyes, watching her laugh and flush mildly at the attention.

_Because of her..._

* * *

"Clear the WAY!"

The doors to the Brass Bar burst open, and Kathy eeped as Maya stood in the doorway, panting heavily and holding a bowl of no doubt another one of her cooking disasters. "Where is he?" Maya hissed. "I have a dish for him..."

"Ch-Chase you mean?" Kathy asked with a stutter of slight fear. "He uh...said he had business s-s-somewhere...with someone..."

"What...? Business...?" Maya hisses through her teeth. "Who could he possibly have business with?"

Meanwhile, travelling the road to downtown Castanet with a dish in his hands was Chase, muttering all sorts of things to himself as he gripped the plate nervously. "I, um...it's just a cake...right? Yeah...nothing wrong with giving a friend a cake...uh huh..." He murmured broken and disjointed sentences as he shuffled closer and closer to the farm, his cheeks evolving from a light pink to a deep fushica. As he strolled past her fields a brown cow mooed at him with a animalistic cheekiness, and he frowned at it.

"Don't mock me, cow..." he muttered with a weak glare, feeling embarassed. "What do you know about giving gifts? It's just a cake; nothing special!" The cow brayed at him with indifference and the bartender shook himself mentally. He was bantering with a **_cow_**? _Goddess, i'm nervous... _

He had never given the farmer girl anything, minus that really high-quality butter he had let her use a while back...and as he stood on her doorstep, his fist hovering over the door, he wondered if he should take the cake, go home, eat it and forget about the whole thi-

"Another day, another way to be belittled by Cha-" the farmer opened the door with a jovial swing, only to meet the bartender's somewhat quizzical violet gaze. With an eep she leaped back inside and shut the door with a bang, leaving Chase standing there rather dumbfoundedly. He looked at the cake, then at the door, and then back again.

"Was she about to say..." he said, and the door opened again, revealing a frazzled-looking Akari.

"Eh he he...how nice of you to d-drop by this fine morning...he he..." she stammered with a supisciously happy grin. "What brings you here, Ch-Chase?"

"Um." He looked down at the orange cake as his fuschia pink cheeks turned a brilliant scarlet. "Well. Um. I..." He cursed his sudden communication disorder as he tried to make his words somewhat coherent.

She looked down at the cake as well and tilted her head to the side curiously. "A cake...? Is this...for m-"

"Just take the blasted food you glutton!" He shoved the plate into her hands roughly and put his hands in his pockets. "It was just an extra one I made, anyway!" He felt strangely foolish after that last remark of his.

Akari blinked owlishly for a few seconds before sniffing the heavenly aroma of oranges and sugar in one delicious cake specimen. She looked at the bartender with such gentleness and appreciation Chase was sure his head would pop off and explode with embarassment.

"What?" He asked, glaring at her with no true animosity. She still didn't say anything, and he felt that his cheeks circuits would fizzle out if he didn't divert her attention away from him.

"I gave you a cake..." he said awkwardly, not looking at her. "...Or-or-orange you glad...?"

Dead silence pierced the land, and far up on the top of a mountain, the Harvest King felt a slight shift in the very essence of the island of Castanet.

Akari's look of thankfulness turned into utter shock, her brown eyes wide and unblinking. Chase felt even more embarassed now, and he wished the ground would swallow him up alive instead of leaving him to suffer utter humiliation...

"You...made a pun? Like...am I dreaming?" She finally mustered up the words to say, and pinched herself so hard that both she and Chase flinched. He blanched as she laughed, harder than she had ever laughed before, tears streaming from her eyes. "Lumber-up-my-butt Chase told _me_ a _JOKE_?"

"Are you trying to make me feel awkward?" He muttered, and Akari stopped laughing at the sound of his tone. It was unlike his regular sarcastic tone; this was an embarassed and shameful tone. He stared at the ground, and sighed. "Never mind. Just...enjoy the darn cake." He turned to leave, walking briskly away. His face was hot with mortification, and he closed his eyes as he muttered to himself harshly.

"Idiot. I'm an idiot; she probably thinks the cake's poisoned or something..." Chase sighed with self-disgust. "I never can say what I mean when it comes to this kind of stuff..." before he knew what he was doing he broke out into a run, and didn't stop until he was back in Flute Fields, in the comforting solitude of his house.

* * *

Akari was nowhere to be seen that day thus far, and Kathy voiced her concern to the busy bartender.

"She hasn't come in to see us...she's usually here by now..." the blond muttered, her green eyes lowered unhappliy. Chase grunted.

"She busts in with a loud bang and a bright, mischievious smile...and say hello," Kathy continued. "She does it everyday we're open..."

"Uh huh."

"And...she gives out presents she works so hard to produce..."

"Mmhm."

"...Chase, what's wrong with you?" Kathy said, her hands on her hips. "You've been more sour than usual today; and that right there is a sentence I thought I'd never say." Chase turned to scowl at her bad-temperedly.

"Nothing concerning you. Now, can you please leave my kitchen, woman?"

With a raise of her left eyebrow and a hum of disapproval she turned around and walked out of Chase's area, not pushing the matter further. Chase sighed as soon as she left, running a hand through his locks tiredly. "Good goddess, my temper's awful today...I blew off Luke and insulted both Selena _and_ Kathy... Not mention I made Maya _cry..." _he thought of the laughing farmer and gritted his teeth. "I...I need an orange..."

"Then I bet you'll like this..."

Chase turned to see Akari behind him, a large slice of his orange cake in her hands, and glared fiercely at her with no kindness in his face. "What do you want now? Was a cake iced with my humiliation not enough for you? You know, that's probably what Luke was talking about that day. You just want to make me feel like a worthless fool, right?" He demanded irrationally, but he didn't care months moment.

Akari opened her mouth to interject, her features crumpled into a protesting expression but Chase wouldn't let her speak.

"Well, you win, Akari," he said. "I feel like a stupid school boy for thinking you'd actually like something from me. Because...since..." he stammered, his cheeks flushing "...goddess...you've grown on me, okay? You maybe an annoying glutton, but you're _the_ annoying glutton...who happens to have a heart as wide as her stomach." Chase sighed as he ran a hand through his hair again, adverting his eyes to the left of her as his cheeks burned a neon red. "Okay? So just...forget about it-"

Akari, without warning, embraced him with her warm arms, and he hesitantly returned the hug, his eyes closing as she spoke something into his ear.

"I never pegged you as a sentimental type, bartender," she said with a large grin as they let go of each other, and Chase's cheeks flushed an embarrassed pink.

"Well, um...this cake. We should eat it." He awkwardly steered the attention from himself to the cake. Akari smiled as he hurriedly gave her a spoon before fetching one for himself, meeting her eyes briefly. "Right?"

"Why not?" Akari said, and took a large bite of it. Chase ate a morsel, observing her content face and her bright eyes, and smiled a true smile. Akari looked up to see his incredibly tender look and blushed a bit with an awkward bashfulness at such a show of his gentle side. "Um. Chase."

The bartender blinked and then raised his eyebrows amusedly as she talked quickly in a flustered manner. "Hey. Um, _orange _you glad you met me, Chase?" She joked, hoping he'd get annoyed at the corny pun she used so often. Instead, his eyes softened, and he leaned over impulsively to graze his lips gentle across her forehead. As Akari's eyes widened in utter shock her cheeks flushed with heat and matched Chase's red ones perfectly.

"I couldn't be more _grapeful._"

* * *

I guess some things don't go exactly according to plan.

But maybe that's just what some people need.

* * *

_AN: I apologize for the utter sappiness and corny jokes you endured reading this story, and you can virtual slap me if anyone was OOC...I needed to write something, so this sappy crap is what I produced. Now, if you excuse me, I hafta go write something more serious._

_Good-bye,_

_HarvestDragon_

_Btw...Maya's cake is a lie. :3_


End file.
